Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Bishop of Durham Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 14th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, this is a very important amendment. So many of those involved have been through unspeakable, disturbing—even horrific—experiences. Detention is really not appropriate for any of them but, if there is detention, it must be strictly monitored and should certainly be for only a limited period of time; 28 days is surely more than long enough for the authorities to be able to establish reasons for declining residency to people who are in detention.

The practice of detaining people, as referred to by Amendment 70, is unspeakable when you think of the kind of backgrounds many have come from. The other practical point I make is that, in the overwhelming majority of cases with which we are dealing, people are ultimately released from detention. This makes it all the more obvious that something is wrong. The system needs very close attention; these amendments help us to provide that kind of focus.

[The Lord Bishop of Durham [V]]

My Lords, I speak in favour of this group of amendments and, in particular, address my comments to Amendments 39 and 40. I concur with the excellent points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, in the introduction to this debate, as well as those made by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and others who have spoken since.

I would like to further emphasise the human and moral cost of our current and proposed detention system. The effect of indefinite detention, which lasts in some cases for months or even years on end, is devastating on the mental and physical health of detainees. Hopelessness promoted by a lack of knowledge over what comes next and flashbacks to past trauma are common experiences.

I offer an illustrative example, collected by the Jesuit Refugee Service, of the impact of our present system. Oliver was conscripted into the army at 17. He had no choice—he was taken off the street one day on his way home from school. He managed to escape after eight years but was captured, imprisoned underground and tortured. He was the victim of human trafficking twice, once being sold into slavery and once when he was taken to Europe. He arrived in the UK in July 2015, immediately made himself known to the authorities and claimed asylum. He was taken into immigration detention at Dover and moved to Harmondsworth IRC.

Oliver spoke no English. He had committed no crime. The incarceration triggered flashbacks to his imprisonment underground in his home country. He was examined by doctors and found to be suffering from PTSD. He had clear injuries on his body, which were ratified by a medical examination as being signs of torture conducive with his experience. After three months in detention, he was released to Section 4 accommodation in Cardiff. A year later, he was suddenly detained again and taken by taxi from Cardiff to Dorset. This time he was released after 18 days and finally granted indefinite leave to remain in 2019.

I could have filled a much longer speech with many other examples, including those of children, victims of trafficking, slavery and sexual abuse, and of people repeatedly detained in a highly traumatic environment that served no purpose in protecting the wider public. These amendments do not dispute that detention can serve a valuable, even critical, purpose, including—in a small number of cases—the protection of the public. What these amendments would do, however, is demand that the purpose of detention is clear and justifiable in each case, and cannot be of unlimited duration or used repeatedly in ways which have been shown to be immensely harmful to detainees. Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington, I believe that the public recognise that detention for long periods is not the way that we treat human beings in our country. We all want a better, respected asylum system, but detention detracts from that. I hope that the concerns in these amendments can be addressed.

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, it is quite some time since my colleague and noble friend Lady Hamwee introduced this group of amendments with such eloquence and in her customary informed, thorough way. I would contrast her remarks with the assertions made by the noble Lord, Lord Green of Deddington. In speaking on this group of amendments, I wish to take us away from the traditional route of making policy by assertion and look towards some evidence.

In normal times, there are usually between 1,500 and 2,000 people detained under immigration powers at any one time. When the pandemic kicked in earlier this year, in March, there were about 1,400. According to Detention Action, that number then fell because of the fears of Covid striking in both prisons and IRCs. By 21 April, the total number of people had fallen to 708; 368 of those were detained in IRCs and 340 under immigration powers in prisons. So the number of people had roughly halved in a very short period of time.

What was the effect of that—on public safety, on levels of absconding or on anything at all? We all know the public cost of detention; it is about £30,000 per person per year. We know from the eloquent testimonies across the House about the cost to the health of individuals of being detained—and, principally, of being detained indefinitely for long periods. Can we begin to talk about the cost and benefit to the Government of indefinite detention? We hear very little about that.

As I will not be speaking again, I want to address one other issue. The Minister quite rightly told us at the beginning of our debates that this legislation was simply a matter of unifying the way in which the country treats people making asylum or immigration claims from the EEA and Switzerland with those from the rest of the world. She will not be surprised to hear that I think we treat LGBT asylum seekers from all over the world appallingly. We have spoken about this many times.

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Secondly, the Minister and I have crossed swords in a friendly way in the past over the pull factor. I still maintain that it does not apply in the case of unaccompanied children. I really do not think that these children set off from Syria or Somalia because they have heard that people are accepted in Britain if they have family there. I really do not think that children set off on their own on a long and dangerous journey because of a pull factor operating out of this country. They set off because of the murder, the mayhem, the terrorism, the bombing and the destruction in the countries they come from. It is the push factor that is by far the predominant pressure leading to these flows. I say this to the Minister: I hope that we can bury our debate on the pull factor in the past, because it really does not apply to the case for Amendment 48.

[The Lord Bishop of Durham [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interests as laid out in the register as receiving support from the RAMP project on immigration policy and as a trustee of Reset. It is a real honour to follow the noble Lords, Lord Dubs and Lord Kerr, with whose comments I fully agree, particularly the final points from the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, on pull and push factors.

In our churches, we tell a story about a man who was attacked by robbers on the road. As he lay wounded, people passed him and hurried on their way. Who helped him? It was not those from his own community. Instead, a stranger saw the man’s plight, chose to stop, carried him to safety and took care of his needs. This man, Jesus observed, was truly a good neighbour. In the light of this, who is our neighbour in a global age?

Throughout its history, the people of this country have faced choices about whether to offer sanctuary to those fleeing violence and persecution. We are rightly proud of the occasions when we have done so. The legacy of the Kindertransport in the Second World War, which saved Jewish children’s lives, and about which many of us have heard our noble friend Lord Dubs speak so movingly on occasions, still motivates many of us to support this cause.

Sadly, there is another history too, in which we in this nation have chosen a different path: of rejecting those in need and shutting our eyes to the plight of those afflicted by conflict and persecution, and of the racist exclusion of those who have come here to rebuild their lives. In a world of conflict, disaster and persecution, we face this choice again and again. Will we offer welcome or will we turn away? Which path will we take as a nation? For those least able to help themselves—unaccompanied children—what will we choose to do?

This week, as we have heard of and seen reports on the fire at the Moria camp in Greece, we are pressed to make a choice whether to help or to stand by, as both the noble Lords, Lord Dubs and Lord Kerr, have said. In that camp, there were thousands of children, including more than 407 unaccompanied minors, some of whom are reported as having family members in the UK but are still waiting to be transferred here, months after being accepted for family reunion under the Dublin III law. In response to this debate, I hope that the Minister will address what is being done for them. Those of us who support this amendment are concerned that while Germany, France and other countries have already offered assistance to those affected by this fire, the UK appears yet to have done so. I am worried that in their actions this week, the Government have already chosen between the two paths with which we are faced.

Christians often remind themselves of these words of Jesus:

“Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”


We are called to treat every child—and every person fleeing persecution and war, for it is within our power to help—with dignity and hospitality, as if they were the son of God himself. Many of us will share a conviction, whatever values or beliefs it is based on, that human life is precious, and that each person carries a unique, incalculable value. How do we choose to recognise that in the question before us of children separated from their families?

I acknowledge the argument made on previous occasions that primary legislation is not necessary to facilitate family reunion. I do not doubt the sincerity of the reassurances that I and others have received repeatedly over recent months from Ministers that they take our humanitarian obligations seriously. Yet I note with regret that the UK’s refugee resettlement scheme appears still to be paused while other countries have restarted theirs. I also note that the Dublin arrangements will soon lapse and that, in any case, there are precious few safe and legal routes for those seeking sanctuary to arrive here.

In the light of that, I must support this amendment, that we might bind ourselves to making the choice to offer sanctuary to those in need of it. I encourage everyone in this House to support it too.

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it is quite difficult to follow such eloquent speeches and I will not attempt to emulate them. However, I can give the House some examples of why I think that they are correct in what they say about public opinion. First, I must declare my interest, as in the register, as being a vice-chairman of the Human Trafficking Foundation.

Having been the local MP, I know that the London of Borough of Hillingdon received and looked after a large number of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. My fellow MPs for the area, John McDonnell and Nick Hurd—that is, from all sides of the political spectrum—and we worked hard because we knew that we welcomed these children. However, we had to make the point, and we came together in doing so, that the then Labour had to provide ample resources so that the public—our constituents—did not feel that they were being disadvantaged in any way and that services would suffer from the long-term financial commitment of looking after these children. I have to say that we were very successful.

When it is explained that this is something that we should do for unaccompanied children, I think that public opinion is there. Without venturing into the right reverend Prelate’s area of expertise, I can give a personal example of where I found the most unlikely good Samaritan. A member of my Conservative association was—shall we say?—very forthright on the immigration policies at that time and was not a fan of lots of people coming in, as he saw it, illegally, legally or whatever, to the point where sometimes I really winced when I heard him speak. However, there was a knock at my window late one night—I lived, and still do live, in the heart of my constituency—and it was this gentleman, who said, “John, you’ve got to do something.” Apparently, he had had a bad road accident and the only person who had come to his aid as he was lying on the road was a young Kosovan, who was going to be deported. When somebody realises that these are real people, suddenly any antipathy disappears.

This country has a great tradition of looking after people, and I shall quote an example that I am aware of but which is probably little known. During the First World War, a lot of Serbian children were looked after in Scotland as they were escaping the horrors of the war. Many settled here; some went back to Serbia after the war. Not only was it right for us to do that but it gave them a great sense of the British way of life. I know from reading an excellent book how grateful they were for what happened at that time.

Therefore, I just say to my noble friend that I think we should be less cautious in worrying about what some of the perhaps more right-wing side of the media say about this. When children come to this country unaccompanied, they do not come for a pull factor; they do so because where they come from is such a hell. Nobody would willingly put themselves at such risk to come from those countries. I am not sure about some of the wording in the amendment—although I am not an expert on it—but I think that we should take this issue very seriously at this particular time.

A couple of years ago, I was at the main railway station in Serbia and saw the flow of migrants, although by that time it was not as large as it had been. Anyone who sees, close to, families who are desperate and leaving war-torn countries such as Syria and Iraq cannot be anything other than moved. I support the amendment.